Category Archives: State pensions

‘If voters aren’t better off by the next election, we’re screwed’: Labour insiders voice fears over budget

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Some say party risks ‘looking twee’ by focusing on small fixes amid growing nervousness that budget lacks ambition

In the days since Labour’s annual conference, party insiders have been sharing a word cloud produced by the pollsters More in Common, which shows the phrases voters most associate with Andy Burnham.

Such polling is rarely flattering for politicians, and the prime minister’s version had its fair share of negatives. But one of the most prominent words in the cloud – and the one that has caught the imagination of Labour strategists – was “trying”.

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As it happened: Israel condemns Green party passing ‘Zionism is racism’ as a ‘stain on history of UK’

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Party formally adopts policy which equates Zionism with racism, as all Green party votes to adopt policy that equates Zionism with racism

On Friday the Times revealed that Katie Lam, the communities secretary, told a meeting in private earlier this year that the state pension system needs a fundamental overhaul.

Speaking in June, when she was a frontbencher but not yet in the shadow cabinet, Lam was asked at a meeting with activists if she thought the pensions triple lock was sustainable. She replied:

Ultimately I think what we will need in the end is an entirely new pension system.

I mean, a baby that is born today has a 20% chance of living to be 100 and I don’t think we can fund one in five people half of their lives, you know, for the first 20 and the last 30 years. But obviously if you are 90 you probably can’t go out and get a job right, so I think you have to be realistic about how you would taper that and bring that in across the population.

The fact is, the triple lock and pensions are things that people have contributed to.

Conservatives believe that if you have contributed, then you deserve to get your state pension.

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Burnham to pass law scrapping pension triple lock before next election

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Guarantee will remain until 2030 but MPs will vote on changes during this parliament, government says

Andy Burnham will pass legislation to scrap the state pension triple lock in this parliament, even though the guarantee will remain until 2030, the government has said.

The prime minister used his conference speech to announce a change to the policy, which guarantees that the state pension rises by the highest of 2.5%, inflation or earnings growth.

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Voters back Burnham’s plan to cut back triple lock to fund social care reform by 48% to 28%, poll suggests – UK politics live

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The data suggest Burnham may be able to win the argument with the public amid lobbying efforts

Andy Burnham has suggested that it would not be legitimate for a party to form a majority government with less than 30% of the vote.

In his Today interview, asked why he wanted electoral reform and a move towards proportional representation, Burnham replied:

I found it better being elected under a different system as mayor of Greater Manchester, where people had one or two, they could put that on the ballot paper.

Because you had a reason to stop on every doorstep and chat to people who might not always support your party and try and get their second preference.

No, it could happen with any political party. It’s whether that would be a legitimate government.

I think you’ve got it completely wrong really, if you don’t mind me saying, to put it like that, because I have put out … a vision for a national care service.

There are pensioners out there who watch your programme who are paying for care costs from their basic state pension. Now, is that right or fair?

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Burnham says he would put PR in Labour manifesto and scrap triple lock to fund social care – UK politics live

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PM, in first speech to party conference as leader, insists his plans are a ‘good deal’ for older people

Angela Rayner, the housing secretary, has apparently confirmed that Andy Burnham will float the prospect of getting rid of the pensions triple lock to help fund the creation of an NHS-style care service.

Asked about the prospect on Sky’s Electoral Dysfunction podcast, Rayner said that Burnham was “absolutely right to start the conversation” and that he was being “brave”.

The high principle on this is that people have paid in all their lives. They are willing, I think, to look at that.

What they don’t want is what they consider to be, quite frankly, incompetent politicians that are going to take something from us to fill a black hole.

When we met with Andy [Burnham] this week, it certainly wasn’t mentioned.

But I do think that it’s important that Labour make sure that working-class people know that they’re on their side, and this would be a direction of travel that would say the opposite to that.

What I understood the national care service to be was a universal benefit: everybody paid in and everybody gets out, and that is what actually the principle of that is.

Going to a group of people who are getting around £12,500 a year in order to pay for it to take away their security is wrong.

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Thinktank linked to Reform UK calls for abolition of state pension

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‘Radical’ report likely to influence party’s platform also proposes abolishing inheritance and capital gains taxes

A thinktank linked to Reform UK has called for the abolition of the state pension and £75bn worth of sweeping tax cuts in a “radical” report likely to influence the party’s platform for the next election.

The Centre for a Better Britain’s (CFABB) report – which also calls for weaker rules for UK banks and Trump-style investment accounts offering £1,000 to newborns – will be formally launched at a private event with City executives on Wednesday.

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Labour, Tories and Lib Dems refuse to stand in byelection with Farage’s resignation labelled ‘desperate stunt’ – as it happened

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Reform UK leader to quit as MP but stand again, saying the people of Clacton ‘should be the judges of my actions’

Q: Do you think the parliamentary commissioner for standards should investigate Nigel Farage’s gifts from George Cottrell?

Badenoch said that was a matter for the commissioner.

[Farage is] hinting at press regulation. For all of the criticism and the attacks, and I would even say abuse that I’ve got from the press, I’ve never once recommended curbing our free press. I think this is one of the amazing things about this country.

I would be very worried about a Reform government using government power to control the press. I don’t think that that would be right.

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Technology secretary says she wants regulator to design plans for online age verification by October – as it happened

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Liz Kendall also wants Ofcom to report to parliament every year on how effectively social media firms are keeping under-16s off their platforms

Starmer acknowledges some teenagers will get round these restrictons. But that does not make the rules pointless, he says.

Will it mean that no child ever looks at social media again? No.

But look, this might shock you, but it doesn’t shock parents of teenagers; they get around other laws too.

Some technology companies want us to think that social media is unchangeable, part of an almost natural order.

But we have to resist that kind of learned helplessness. We have agency, we can change it, and we will.

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Starmer says Reform’s pledge to restore two-child benefit cap in full is ‘shameful’ – UK politics live

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Reform UK’s Robert Jenrick has announced party’s plans to cut welfare spending

Robert Jenrick, Reform UK’s Treasury spokesperson, is giving his speech now.

He has announced, or confirmed, three measures to cut welfare spending.

The number claiming disability benefits for an attention disorder has more than doubled since Covid. We all know a significant number of these claims are spurious …

We will stop those with mild anxiety, depression, and similar conditions from claiming disability benefits and instead encourage them into the dignity of work.

We will end the abuse of the Motability scheme, where expensive cars are handed out for conditions like tennis elbow, and paid for by working people who can’t afford them themselves.

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Nandy rules out taking action to remove Robbie Gibb from BBC board – as it happened

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Culture secretary also condemns MPs who dismiss BBC as ‘institutionally biased’ in swipe at Badenoch and Farage. This live blog is closed

Here is a round-up of what various lawyers and commentators have been saying about Donald Trump’s legal case against the BBC.

Joshua Rozenberg, the legal commentator and a former BBC journalist, has said in a post on his A Lawyer Writes Substack that the corporation should settle. He explains:

Given what Brito is claiming, the lawyer is unlikely to be impressed with the BBC’s assertion that “the purpose of editing the clip was to convey the message of the speech made by President Trump so that Panorama’s audience could better understand how it had been received by President Trump’s supporters and what was happening on the ground at that time”.

So the BBC would be well advised to draft a retraction and apology in terms that the president’s lawyer finds acceptable. Brito is also calling for this to be broadcast as prominently as the original programme. And the corporation will have to pay compensation.

George Peretz KC, chair of the Society of Labour Lawyers, says on Bluesky, commenting on Rozenberg’s blog, that the BBC might be better off with a more robust approach.

So at the moment, despite @joshuarozenberg.bsky.social’s piece, I wonder whether a better BBC response would be the Arkell v Pressdram one. proftomcrick.com/2014/04/29/a...

(At least to the extent he’s seeking more than a formal apology limited to the obvious mistake and a very modest offer of compensation.)

There is, after all, the risk of a dangerous precedent here. The BBC will often offend foreign leaders – some worse than Trump. Sometimes it will make factual mistakes in reporting on them. Yield to Trump now, and who next?

Mark Stephens, a media lawyer, told BBC Breakfast that a court case could reflect badly on Trump. He said:

Every damning quote that he’s ever uttered is going to be played back to him and picked over – not great PR.

Trump risks turning what’s currently a PR skirmish with the BBC very much on the back foot into a global headline that the court finds Trump’s words were incendiary …

George Freeman, executive director of the Media Law Resource Center in New York and a former lawyer for the New York Times, told the BBC that Trump “has a long record of unsuccessful libel suits – and an even longer record of letters like the one you received that don’t end up as lawsuits at all”.

Christopher Steele, the former MI6 officer who is trying to recover costs from Trump after the president sued him unsuccessfully in the UK, says Trump’s latest threat is preposterous.

Donald Trump’s threat to sue the BBC in London is preposterous. He remains in breach of English High Court orders in a case he brought and lost against Orbis 18 months ago. So any further abuse of the UK courts by him for such legal tourism and intimidation should be prohibited.

Robert Peston, ITV’s political editor, says the BBC has been told Trump does not have a case.

The legal advice to the BBC I am told is that President Trump was not meaningfully damaged by Panorama’s manipulation of his 6 January speech, and that therefore there is no legal necessity to pay him compensation. The BBC board is therefore likely to resist and fight his demand to be “appropriately compensated” out of court, and will risk him carrying through on his threat to seek $1bn in damages by going to court.

These times are difficult for the BBC but we will get through it. We will get through it and we will thrive. This narrative will not just be given by our enemies. It’s our narrative. We own things.

I see the free press under pressure. I see the weaponisation. I think we have to fight for our journalism.

We have made some mistakes that have cost us but we need to fight for that.

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UK to reconsider decision to deny Waspi women pension payouts

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Millions born in 1950s lost out because of government failings over changes to state retirement age, campaigners say

Millions of “Waspi women” have been given fresh hope that they might receive compensation after the UK government announced it would revisit a decision to deny them payouts.

As many as 3.6 million women born in the 1950s are said to have lost out because of government failings in the way changes to the state pension age were made, prompting the Waspi (Women Against State Pension Inequality) campaign to launch in 2015.

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Farage accused of betraying pensioners after triple lock hint in speech Tories say was rambling and incoherent – UK politics live

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Reform leader refuses to commit to keeping mechanism that guarantees how pensions are increased

Farage is speaking now. He says another “depressing budget hoves into view”. It will be a budget that “doesn’t have the guts to cut public spending”.

He says Britain has been living under an illusion.

I think for some years we’ve actually been living under an illusion. We’ve not been prepared to face up to just how much of an economic mess we genuinely in.

As we slipped down the global league tables, we kid ourselves that it’s OK, we’ve got GDP growth.

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Surprise fall in UK inflation badly timed for benefit recipients

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Payments such as universal credit linked to previous September’s figure, meaning a rise of just 1.7% in April

Last month’s surprise fall in UK inflation lands with bad timing for millions of people who receive state benefits linked to the figure, who can now expect their payments to rise by just 1.7% next April.

A number of benefits, including universal credit, are increased each tax year in line with the cost of living figure for the previous September.

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Labour has 99% chance of forming next government, says elections expert – UK politics live

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Prof Sir John Curtice, the psephologist and lead election analyst for the BBC, said the chances of a Tory revival were small

In the House of Lords peers have just started debating the second reading of the leasehold and freehold reform bill. The bill has already passed through the Commons.

Normally, at this stage of the process, the content of a government bill is all but finalised. But, as No 10 admitted on Monday, the government has still not decided how far it will go in terms of cutting ground rents for existing leaseholders.

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Tory MP Robert Halfon quits as minister and James Heappey confirms resignation, paving way for mini reshuffle – as it happened

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Robert Halfon quits as skills, apprenticeships and higher education minister as James Heappey confirms decision to step down

In interviews this morning Gillian Keegan, the education secretary, admitted that special educational needs provision was in crisis, Ben Quinn reports.

Universities in England could be told to terminate their arrangements with foreign countries if freedom of speech and academic freedom is undermined, the government’s free speech tsar has said. As PA Media reports, Prof Arif Ahmed, director for freedom of speech and academic freedom at the Office for Students (OfS), said many universities and colleges in England have “international arrangements” – including admitting overseas students on scholarships and hosting institutes partly funded by foreign governments. PA says:

The higher education regulator launched a consultation on guidance about freedom of speech, ahead of universities, colleges and student unions taking on new free speech duties.

The guidance includes examples to illustrate what higher education institutions may have to do to fulfil their new duties – due to come into effect in August – to secure freedom of speech within the law.

University A accepts international students on visiting scholarships funded by the government of country B. Scholars must accept the principles of the ruling party of country B, and direction from country B’s government via consular staff. Depending on the circumstances, these arrangements may undermine free speech and academic freedom at University A. If so, that university is likely to have to terminate or amend the scholarship agreement.

If it means that there are people who are employed by an institute who are preventing legitimate protests or shutting down lecturers from covering certain kinds of content regarding that country for instance, or that country’s foreign policy … If that behaviour amounts to a restriction of freedom of speech within the law, and someone brings a complaint to us, then we may find that the complaint is justified and then we make recommendations …

If there are problems, universities will have to do everything they can to act compatibly with their freedom-of-speech duties. Insofar as that means a rethinking of their relationship with other countries, obviously that’s something that would be a good idea for them to start thinking about now.

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Thousands of UK women owed pension payout after ombudsman’s Waspi ruling

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The way women’s state pension age was raised plunged retirement plans into chaos with many now in line for compensation

Thousands of women are owed compensation because of government failings related to the way changes to the state pension age were made, a long-awaited official report has said.

The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) said those affected were owed compensation but added that that Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) had clearly indicated it would “refuse to comply”, which was “unacceptable”.

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Boris Johnson government ‘always hoped’ Northern Ireland protocol would collapse – UK politics live

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Lord Frost, Brexit negotiator for former PM, tells House of Lords that government never wanted ‘unsatisfactory’ protocol to work

Rayner says Labour will update trade union laws to make them fit for the 21st century.

The laws affecting union reps and officials do not take into account technological advancements, she says.

First, we will update regulations to outlaw the use of predictive technologies for blacklisting and safeguard against singling out workers for mistreatment or the sack without any evidence of human interaction.

Second, we will act to end the loophole that allows employers to pass the dirty work down to third party contractors, so that any third party found to be carrying out blacklisting can legally be held to account.

The Tories pushed through the 2016 Trade Union Act, preventing fair bargaining and holding back living standards.

And this year they gave us the minimum service levels bill [the Strikes Act] …

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Benefits claimants in UK were underpaid by record £3.3bn last year

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National Audit Office criticises Department for Work and Pensions over its ‘material fraud and error’

Thousands of people in the UK could receive a payout after official figures revealed that benefit claimants were underpaid by £3.3bn last year, the highest level on record.

The Department for Work and Pensions also admitted that as many as 330,000 people, some of whom have since died, may have missed out on as much as £1.5bn of valuable state pension entitlement – a disclosure that prompted some commentators to warn of a new scandal. Steve Webb, the former pensions minister, said: “The scale of these errors is huge.”

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Ministers reportedly scrap plan to bring forward rise in UK state pension age

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Falling life expectancy and fears of voter unhappiness thought to be behind rethink about increase to 68 late next decade

Ministers have reportedly delayed plans to bring forward a rise in the state pension age amid falling life expectancy in the UK.

The state pension age, which is currently 66, was due to rise to 68 after 2044 but reports earlier this year suggested ministers had planned to bring the increase forward to between 2037 and 2039.

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No 10 declines to say Sunak confident Zahawi has always told him truth about his tax affairs – UK politics live

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Downing Street spokesperson also says inquiry into former chancellor’s affairs to be ‘conducted swiftly’

There are two urgent questions in the Commons later. At 12.30pm Caroline Lucas (Green) is asking one about the child asylum seekers who have gone missing from hotel accommodation provided by the Home Office, and that will be followed by Ben Bradshaw (Lab) asking one about the Church of England’s stance on equal marriage.

After those are over Damian Hinds, the justice minister, will deliver a statement about the probation inspectorate.

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